On Sun, 27 May 2007 02:43:41 -0700 Don Armstrong wrote:
> On Sun, 27 May 2007, Francesco Poli wrote:
[...]
> > Whatever the its origin is[1], the term "proprietary" is now a
> > well-established[2] word used as opposed to "free" (as in freedom).
>
> And no, it's not a well-established word in that regard. Like many
> terms in the Copyright/Trademark/Patent rights space, it gets missused
> by people who are not familiar with it and haven't bothered to consult
> a dictionary.
If you consult a dictionary you won't find any reference to the FSD or
to the DFSG in the definition of the adjective "free".
Please bear in mind that we are talking about technical meanings that
have to be defined in their field: a non-technical dictionary won't
help.
>
> > Free == grants all the important freedoms (see the FSD or the DFSG)
> > Proprietary == non-free
>
> If you mean non-free, just say non-free. Don't use confusing terms
> like proprietary, which belongs on the closed/open axis, not the
> free/non-free axis.
It seems we are talking different jargons here... :-(
I've sometimes seen the closed/open distinction used to refer to the
availability of source code (which is a necessary, but non-sufficient,
condition for freeness). More often I see the term "open source" used
and abused and misused for any kind of meaning, hence I won't comment
any further on it.
I don't see the term "proprietary" as more confusing than "free".
Once they are defined in the context of software freedom, they are
perfectly clear to me.
If, on the other hand, you insist that a dictionary must be consulted,
then you will find many meanings for the term "free" (including
"gratuitous"), none of which specifies which freedoms should be granted
over a piece of software in order to call it "free software".
Consequently, if you want to avoid any possibility of confusion, you
have to replace the terms "proprietary" and "free" with some newly
invented words ("weruqilaztic"? "yuprrsabbbysh"? "xxawrothent'jasa"?
...). I don't think that would be a good idea.
--
http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html
Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through?
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
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